NOTITIAE

A National Symposium on
Indigenous Cultures of North and Northeast India, organized jointly by the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India Commission for Education and Culture and
the Archdiocese of Shillong, was held at the Pastoral Centre, Shillong, 1-4
November 2002. Sixty-three participants including a Cardinal, 2 Archbishops, 1
Bishop and delegates from all the North-Eastern States, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh,
Madhya Pradesh and South India participated in the Symposium on Understanding
Tribal Cultures: Education in Tribal Cultures. It was a unique occasion to
get an in-depth understanding of the great mosaic of indigenous cultures in
India.

The symposium concluded with the
following statement and plan of action:

We, the participants of the
National Symposium on “Understanding Tribal Cultures, Educating in Tribal
Cultures,” jointly organized by the CBCI Commission for Education and Culture
and the Archdiocese of Shillong, at the Pastoral Centre, Shillong, 1st-4th
November, 2002, note with much satisfaction that the Catholic Church has played
a very prominent role in the preservation and promotion of indigenous cultures
of India.

Catholic Missionaries and the
laity have been instrumental in developing tribal languages through their
writings and the compilation of dictionaries and grammars. They have, through
their scholarship, made the customs and practices of indigenous peoples better
known and understood, thereby favouring the growth and development of the
cultures. The large number of Church-run schools, colleges and centres of
learning have contributed to the sustaining and deepening of many core values
of tribal groups. Nevertheless, the Church humbly acknowledges that it could
have done more to ensure that tribal languages and customs were better
integrated into all forms of Church ministry.

Today, faced with the erosion of
values, in particular of tribal values, due to the onslaught of globalisation
and communalisation of our lives, this assembly has before it two major tasks,
(a) to identify the core values in tribal societies, and (b) to draw up a
plan of action for the conservation and development of these values in
tribal societies.

In response to the first task –
namely, what are the core values that characterize tribal life – this
assembly has identified the following as being particularly significant: the
all-pervasive influence of the Transcendent, respect for elders, gender
equality, non-hierarchical social structure, sense of sociability and
hospitality, community feeling, democratic style of functioning in decision
making through consensus, openness to other religions, basic honesty,
hard work, creativity, contentedness and joy in simple living, love of nature,
attachment to land and forest, love of freedom with proper parental guidance,
celebration of life through feasts and festivities, hope for the future.

In response to the second task,
we recognise that culture is something alive and dynamic and that a culture that
does not change does not survive. However, the processes of transition and
change make it imperative that attempts be made to preserve and promote core
tribal values and lifestyles whilst incorporating, in an organic manner, the
changes that science and technology bring in. Therefore, inspired by Jesus the
Teacher and keeping in mind the teachings of the Church, this Assembly has drawn
up the following Plan of Action.

Catholic educational
institutions in tribal areas will:

1. utilize, as far as
possible, textbooks that cater to tribal history, geography and science. They
will also encourage the teachers to enter textbook-writing-committees so as to
ensure that tribal aspects of life find a place in the textbooks;

2. as far as possible, make
the study of tribal languages, myths, folklore, dances, songs, music, etc., part
of the curriculum and include indigenous arts and crafts in the SUPW syllabus;

3. strive to involve students
in environmental activities and, wherever possible, include traditional skills
and occupations like agriculture, horticulture, forestry, blacksmithy,
basket-making, etc. in the formation of students;

4. as a rule, appoint tribal
teachers as they are more at home in the language and customs of the people.
Non-local teachers shall be given adequate training in tribal languages and
customs;

5. make use of notice-boards
to keep alive tribal symbols and symbolism and to display information about
tribal festivals. On festival days students could be encouraged to wear tribal
dress;

6. create an ethos that
promotes local values and a love for one’s own culture. Value education
programmes will pay particular attention to tribal values;

7. while discouraging
competition, promote cooperation and a competitiveness that strives to match
one’s achievements with one’s own abilities; and

8. while promoting awareness
about the good and bad effects of globalisation among students, teachers and
parents, efforts will be made to maintain a proper balance between modernity and
tradition.

This assembly recommends that
the local Ordinaries and Major Superiors of Religious Orders and Congregations
monitor the implementation of the above Plan of Action in parishes and
institutions under their care. It is in working together at a common task that
we shall find strength, support, accomplishment and fulfilment.

Pope John Paul II sent a
telegram of encouragement to a July 24-27 conference of more than 2,600
Vietnamese Catholics from 18 countries gathered in Rome on the theme: “United in
Living and in Proclaiming Good News”. The Pope encouraged Vietnamese Catholics
living outside their homeland to preserve their culture, to be united and to be
living witnesses of the Gospel. He hoped that the meeting would reawaken
“sentiments of fraternal friendship and solidarity, reinforcing your ties with
the traditions of Vietnamese popular piety”.

This “Faith Encounter” was
organised by the Coordinating Office for Apostolates of Vietnamese Catholics in
the diaspora, which was created in 1988 by the Congregation for the
Evangelisation of Peoples. These Vietnamese pilgrims represent more than 550,000
Catholics among 2 million Vietnamese dispersed in 30 countries all over the
world. For the first time, they gathered at St. Peter’s tomb, 28 years after
having left their homeland, to take part in times of prayers and liturgy, in
festivals of songs and traditional dances, in meetings to exchanges experiences,
and in special groups to discuss themes assigned for priests and religious,
youths, parents, communicators, associations and movements.

The participants were delighted
to celebrate their faith; very touching was the penitential liturgy and the
procession in honour of the Madonna of Lavang, the national Marian shrine in
Vietnam. The first meeting of the third millennium opened for them challenges
for the future. The principal challenge for the Vietnamese Catholics in the
diaspora is integration into the local Churches whilst preserving their own
cultural identity and religious traditions, which is enriching for the whole
Church. The purpose of the meeting was to arouse the enthusiasm and communion of
faith needed to incarnate further the Gospel and to strengthen the missionary
spirit. In responding to the Pope’s Duc in Altum call, their priority is
the formation of youth and the lay apostolate in cultural, socio-political, and
interreligious fields.

The event concluded with a
solemn Eucharistic Celebration presided over by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe at St.
Peter’s Basilica. In his homily and particularly in the solemn missionary
assignment rite at the end of the Mass, he exhorted and assigned, through the
two symbols of the Cross and the Bible and under the protection of Madonna of
Lavang, the Vietnamese Catholics in the diaspora to proclaim Good News for all
people: Duc in Altum. He said that, while in the past foreign
missionaries brought the Gospel to their homeland, in the present it is the duty
of the Vietnamese in the diaspora to spread their inculturated faith and
religious life to people they are living with in foreign countries.

The gathering brought to Rome
the voice, the cultural colours, and the inculturated faith of a people who have
suffered for a long time and who have remained full of hope. They breathed an
atmosphere of spiritual harmony, joy, and unity in a festival of faith at St.
Peter’s tomb; and went back home with an assignment to bring Good News to the
foreign cultures they are living in.

Here are excerpts from
the text of U.S. Senator Sam Brownback's commencement address at Ave Maria Law
School delivered on May 18. The Republican from Kansas is a recent convert to
Catholicism.

St. Thomas More, the
patron saint of politicians and lawyers – two professions that desperately need
a patron saint – taught that “man cannot be separated from God, nor politics
from morality”. St. Thomas More stood boldly as a sign of contradiction in his
own society by refusing to be separated from God when political pressure sought
to separate politics from morality.

You have the same
calling. The example of St. Thomas More, like that of all the saints, is one
that we all must follow in our daily lives. I think it is this example that we
must all heed as we struggle to turn the ordinary events of our daily lives into
true opportunities of loving and serving God, the Church and all souls with the
same fervor with which our Lord performed his simple and humble, life-changing
service to us.

We can begin to follow
that example by living unity of life. Unity of life is an important Catholic
principle that helps keep the totality of our life here on earth in its proper
balance. By unity of life, I mean living one's faith fully while living and
working in the middle of the world. Our faith should form our decisions and
animate our actions, whether we work as politicians, carpenters, social workers,
doctors or yes, even as lawyers.

Our faith is who we are.
When we fail to live our faith in our daily lives, or fail to allow ourselves to
be shaped by the loving providence of God, we fail to live fully the lives God
wants us to live. Our faith and our daily life in the world cannot and should
not be separated.

To live unity of life we
must realize that we have all been called to holiness. That call involves our
cooperation with God in the conversion of our hearts, families and in the
conversion of our culture. It does not matter what our station is in life, we
must all work to sanctify our daily lives. It is by doing this that we perform
the most effective witness we can.

As some of you may know,
this Easter marked my first as a Roman Catholic. I was deeply struck by the
beauty of the Easter celebration. Our call to live faithful lives in the world
is beautifully demonstrated in the Easter liturgy in so many ways. During the
Easter Vigil, as the candle slowly processes from the back of the Church to the
altar, we are reminded of how the power of Christ shattered the darkness. As we
participate in that life-giving act of God, we become candles of light
shattering the darkness for those around us.

What a powerful witness
we are called to be. We have to convert the culture by our own example; we have
to convert the culture by being good Christians and by being good citizens.

You will have to convert
the culture by being good lawyers, and many of you will have to convert the
culture by also being good parents. We start the conversion of our culture in
our daily lives – we begin with ourselves and with our families.

I think we all have a
responsibility to do our duty to God and family regardless of whatever pressures
the culture or society may place upon us. It seems we need to keep in mind that
in our very families we are raising the next generation of citizens; the best
thing we can do, therefore, to convert the culture, other than through living
our daily call to holiness, is to raise good families with members that are
properly formed in their faith and duty.

They are the next
generation of Christians and also the next generation of citizens. We change the
culture by being good citizens and by being good parents. It is the duty of
every parent to instill within their children the fundamentals of the faith. God
trusts us with the upbringing of these little ones only for a time; we should
not fail to perform that duty to the fullest. It is what will transform our
culture.

You also have to convert
the culture through your work. When Mother Teresa visited the United States just
a few months before she died she said something incredible to me: “All for
Jesus, All for Jesus, All for Jesus”.

“All for Jesus” was one
of the most simple and yet most profound things she could have said. If we, as
individuals, of whatever means or resources, do it “all for Jesus”, every day of
our lives, we fulfill our duties and responsibilities as Christians.

To do this we must never
give up the struggle to live lives of personal sanctity in the midst of our
world. I am convinced that only through our prayer, and our example we can have
the impact on our world that we are called to have. Mother Teresa faithfully
lived her call to witness the light of our Christian faith to the “poorest of
the poor”.

You have the same call;
you have the same challenge. You will meet, every day, the “poorest of the poor”
– ironically, they won’t seem to be the poorest of the poor, and you might not
always recognize their poverty. But they are. They will be the ones working
alongside you in corporate America, in the courtroom, or in whatever
circumstances you find yourself. Spiritual poverty, of course, is the most
debilitating poverty that exists, for it fills the soul with a false sense of
worldly security while leaving the soul starved of the nourishment that only
Christ can provide.

Many of you will bring
Christ to the spiritually poor; others of you, I would challenge to bring Christ
to the physically poor as well. Clearly, much work is needed in the world to
bring Christ to those who are suffering. If that is your calling, I encourage
you – I challenge you – to heed it. We must always reach out to the poorest of
the poor. You have to convert the world and you must do it by living a life of
personal sanctity.

Of course, much of
living lives of personal sanctity rests in our willingness to abandon ourselves
to Divine Providence. The problems we confront in our daily lives are problems
that often require our immediate and prayerful attention; but above all they
demand that we understand them in their proper context.

We have to have complete
confidence that God is in control and that whatever circumstances or problems
that might confront us are ultimately ordered, by God, to the good of our own
salvation and the salvation of others. It is important that we never become
discouraged by the problems that confront us or circumstances that surround us.
We must lives our lives as good citizens, full engaged in the world around us.

Finally, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so eloquently stated
earlier this year: “by fulfilling their civic duties, guided by a Christian
conscience, in conformity with its values, the lay faithful exercise their
proper task of infusing the temporal order with Christian values, all the while
respecting the nature and rightful autonomy of that order, and cooperating with
other citizens according to their particular competence and responsibility. ...
The lay faithful are never to relinquish their participation in public life,
that is, in so many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and
cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally
the common good” (Doctrinal
Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political
Life,
24 November 2002).

To be good citizens we
must be good Catholics; and to be good Catholics we must be active citizens. God
bless you all for the good work you have already done – and for the good work
you are about to undertake.